Washington Vancouver Mission

Monday, December 15, 2014

Another great week of missionary work! Miracle story: so we had just
tried this person who used to investigate the church, and she totally
shot us down. We walked away feeling a little discouraged when we hear
someone yelling at us from across the parking lot. This girl yelled
"Hey! What church are you from?" So we walked up to her and told her
and she told us that she has been looking for a new church because the
churches she goes to lack the presence of God. We shared "He is the
gift" (Awesome video btw, go watch it) with her and she loved it. She
agreed to meet with us again and it was just such a cool experience!
The weather here has been crazy. Super windy and northwesterners don't
know how to handle the wind. We have had a lesson in the dark because
of power outages, so that keeps it interesting. A girl in the ward
invited her friend to the potluck we had on Monday, and then later we
found out that her dad had passed away that night very unexpectedly.
It was a cool opportunity to testify of the plan of salvation, but
really hard to watch her struggle. Our other investigators are doing
well, and we have one that is really ready to be baptized but is
having a hard time committing to a date. We just need lots of prayers
for those we are working with! This morning we got to go up by mount
saint Helens to these caves that you can hike, but once we got up
there I realized I shouldn't be climbing around on rocks with my hand,
so we just had to enjoy the nature while everyone else hiked. It
amazes me every day how beautiful it is here! I will never get tired
of the green and even the rain. I am so grateful for this opportunity
to be spreading gods word here in the most beautiful place! Thanks for
all the support and prayers! I love you all. Have a fantastic week! :)
Sister Henderson

This week has been so great! We had the opportunity to go to the temple on Tuesday as a mission. It was so refreshing to feel the peace that the temple brings! After our temple trip, we had a Christmas program as a mission. The spirit was so strong and really got me excited for Christmas. Christmas time as a missionary is the best! People are a lot more receptive to us and are more willing to meet with us. We had to drop a few people this week, which was really hard. It always breaks my heart when we have to drop people because they aren't progressing. We went tracting this week a few times in the pouring rain. I actually really love it! I don't think I will ever get tired of the rain. Thankfully I got a good raincoat so getting wet is the least of my worries :) I now know why missionaries gain so much weight. People won't stop feeding us. On Saturday one of our recent concerts fed us dinner. She still hasn't told her mom that she was baptized because her mom has a history of chasing away missionaries and screaming and yelling at them, but her grandma lives with her and knows about everything. Her grandma is from the Philippines (and is so TINY) and wanted to make us dinner, and her mom showed up halfway through our dinner. Sister Thomas and I were preparing ourselves for the worst, but her mom just sat down and started eating with us and was very pleasant. We were so shocked that she was so nice to us. The lord really does provide miracles! Our investigator, Vivian, still won't commit to a baptismal date. She knows it's true, but she just isn't ready to make that commitment. Hopefully she will realize how important it is and choose to make that decision. Our other investigator, Rose, is doing great. The only problem is that she lives with her 16 year old boyfriend. They are both so interested and just love everything we teach them. They got really excited about the plan of salvation. Well that is about it for this week. I am still plugging along even with the pain I am in with my hand. Thank you for all the love and support! Have a great week and remember to be nice to the missionaries :)

Saturday, December 6, 2014

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! Mine was so wonderful. We had two thanksgiving dinners and then we got to go to the mission president's house for pie that night. I think I might have gained 400 lbs just from that one day, but it was so worth it :) This week wasn't too exciting, a lot of people were out of town so we didn't have much success this week. Hopefully things will start picking up again this week. I want you all to know how grateful I am for all the love and support! It has been a hard week with how much pain I am in with my hand, but I can feel the prayers and love from all of you. Sorry this is pretty short, I can't type too much without it hurting. I love you all! Have a great week!

"I NEED MORE COFFEE!"‏

It has been the crrraaazzziiest week! Good news: I'm done with training! I can't believe I have been here for 3 months already! Time really does fly when you are having fun :) My week was pretty normal until Friday. We did some service at Meals on Wheels for their Thanksgiving lunch, so we got to spend quite some time with a lot of old people. I am NOT used to old people, since I serve in the Young Single Adult ward, so it was definitely a different experience than I am used to. We all picked a table, and we had to serve the people sitting at our tables. I have never heard the phrase "I need more coffee!" in my entire life and I have never seen anyone drink as much coffee as these old people. What was even funnier was watching all these missionaries trying to make these old people coffee. None of us knew how much cream and sugar to put in so we all just guessed. We sang Christmas songs at the end with the band that volunteered, and lets just say that the crowd went wild. They just loved it. That took almost our whole day, and then we had to finish some last minute details for Minji's baptism. We ended up not having anyone to make refreshments (And you all know how important those are) so Sister Thomas and I ended up making cookies and brownies until about 10 pm. We then got a call from some sisters who didn't have a place to sleep that night, so we had to drive about 25 minutes to pick them up and bring them back to our house to stay the night. We didn't end up getting to bed until about midnight, and then we had to be up by 5:30 the next morning to prepare everything for the baptism. Thankfully, everything worked out and Minji was baptized. Her whole family came and they are so supportive of everything. This whole experience with Minji has just been surreal! We taught her everything in 2 weeks and she was so excited for her baptism. She is one of those people that every missionary dreams of teaching. She is the definition of elect! She was confirmed on Sunday and her family came to church to be there when she was confirmed. She was just crying and so overcome with the spirit, and it was really neat to see! In other news, no transfer letters! That means that Sister Thomas and I get one more transfer together! She will be going home at the beginning of January, so this is her last transfer. I am loving Vancouver and couldn't think of a better place to serve. The people here are so amazing and the members are so supportive! Thank you for all the prayers and support! I love you all! Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving :) Eat lots of food, but don't get too fat!

Sunday, November 23, 2014

What an insane week! On Tuesday, it was SO windy. People here don't know how to handle the wind, and neither do the trees. I can't tell you how many trees didn't make it through the wind. We had zone meeting on Tuesday and we did exchanges that day as well. I stayed in the YSA and we froze our little buns off. Not only was it super windy, but it was freezing cold too. On Wednesday, sister Thomas came back and the weather was the same. Insanely cold and windy. Thankfully we had a lot of lessons that day, so we didn't have to suffer too bad. We took a less active member to the family history center and one of the old people there was warning us that the next day was going to snow 4-6 inches and that we would lose power. He was really concerned with making sure we had toilet water, and we reassured him that we would figure it out. At least the old people here are taking care of us haha. On Thursday it did snow, but definitely not 4-6 inches. We were worried that our cars would be on lockdown with the snow (The mission president likes to do that) and our area is waaaayyyy too big to walk everywhere, and we had a really important lesson with our investigator, Minji, so we drove over there before the would lockdown the cars. Thankfully we got the lesson over with, and they didn't end up taking away the cars. I can't imagine not having a car in the YSA since everyone lives so far away from each other. I guess it is really early for it to be snowing here, so everyone was really shocked. On Friday Elder Snow came to our mission for a mission tour. It was a long day, but such a great one. I learned so much from him. On our lunch break, him and his wife came and sat by us because I guess we were laughing too much and they wanted to sit where the fun was happening. I found out that his grandpa (or great grandpa?) co-founded Snowflake (makes a lot of sense) so that was pretty cool! On Saturday Minji had her baptismal interview and is all set for her baptism this Saturday! We are getting really excited! Everything with her has been so amazingly easy and I have been waiting for something to happen to keep her from being baptized. So far, nothing. Keep her in your prayers! We had stake conference this weekend, and at the adult session, we had a "missionary and friends" choir, so we all invited our investigators to sing with us. Our investigator, Vivian, did it with us and it was such a cool experience. The spirit was really strong and it was just so good! On Sunday, president Taylor spoke at stake conference and it was just really good. Well, that's about it for this week. We will hopefully have a baptism this weekend, so make sure to pray for us. The work here is booming! We get transfer calls this week, so hopefully sister Thomas and I don't get transferred. She has been here for 9 months, so it is very likely that she won't be staying. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Sunday, November 16, 2014

It has been quite the week here in Washington! The weather is cooling
down a lot and people are already putting up their Christmas stuff. I
made sister Thomas start to go running with me, so she isn't happy
with me about that. I just need to work off all the crap they feed us
in the YSA. So good news, our investigator Minji, the one who randomly
came to church, is on date for November 22! We are really excited! She
is awesome and so adorable. She was making sure that she was still ok
to be be baptized and was telling us how excited her family is for the
baptism! President Taylor came to our ward on Sunday, so we introduced
him to Minji and she was telling him how excited she is to be
baptized. She is pretty solid :) we only get to meet with her twice a
week for half an hour, so we are trying to cram in as much as we can
before her baptism. We found 3 new investigators this week, two of
them used to be investigators, so we just started meeting with them
again. The other one we found while tracting, which is nearly
impossible to find 18-30 year old women who are not married and don't
have any kids. We were pretty excited about that one! Our other
investigator, Hannah, is doing awesome! We took her to a baptism on
Saturday and she loved it. She is still try into decide if she wants
to join the church, but she is excited to come to church this weekend!
Vivian is doing ok. She isn't progressing very well and has a lot of
concerns. Hopefully we can clear things up for her. She has been
investigating the church for a year now, so we hope that she will
figure things out! We got to go up to Longview this week, which is an
hour drive. I know know what everyone talks about. It smells weird up
there. We met one of sister Thomas' childhood friends there who ended
up moving her a few months ago! She isn't a member, so it was cool to
teach her! Not much else is happening. We are just trying to work as
hard as we can! And don't worry about the subject of this email.
Everyone thinks we get to do what we want because our boundaries are
insane, so it is really funny that they think that. Well, I hope you
all have a good week! I love you all! Thanks for the support and
prayers. They really do carry me :)
Sister Henderson

I think that the rain is bringing success with it here in Vancouver. We have finally been seeing the fruits of our labors! We have taught so many lessons this week, and our investigators are progressing unbelievably well! We put another one of our investigators on date this week and we finally got to start teaching her the lessons! She has been asking us since the day we met her when she could be baptized, and now that we started the lessons, she is basically good to go! It has really been one of the best weeks since I have been here! Sister Thomas turned 21 on Thursday, so we ate A LOT of cake that day. Everybody we saw gave us cake. Talk about a sugar overload. We got to go to the temple with one of our investigators and her aunt that day and take them to the visitors center. It was so good and they loved it! I really hope this helps her in her decision to be baptized! On Halloween we had to be in after dark and there was a YSA thing in Oregon, so none of the YSA's were available to teach or anything. We ended up going to an old couple's house and cleaning it, even though it wasn't even dirty. They gave us cupcakes, so I wasn't about to complain! On Saturday, one of our recent converts took us out to a German restaurant and it was the best thing I have eaten on my mission. It is unique to Oregon and Washington, so that is kind of a bummer.

It has been super rainy here, like nonstop rain for the past 2 weeks. I love it! Everyone thinks that I can't handle the rain since I am from Arizona, but in fact, it is the opposite. It just makes me love it even more. It is cooling off a lot and I am loving the cooler fall weather. I had my first experience with daylight savings on Sunday. It was good because we got an extra hour of sleep. I am not, however, looking forwarding to losing an hour. I love Arizona because you don't gain anything, so then you don't have to lose anything.

I can't believe that Bryce got called to Washington! I totally called it! Congrats Bryce! You are going to love it! Vancouver actually used to be in that mission, so a lot of missionaries in my mission were originally called to Kennewick. It isn't as cool as the Vancouver mission, but it is alright I guess :) I can't believe this transfer is already halfway over. I really hope I get to stay here forever. I think that 18 months in the Clark ward would be a dream come true. It is a great place to be for a long time! I will have to talk to President and see what her thinks :) I hope you all had a great Halloween! Have a great week and keep doing missionary work!